This series explains The Verdi Group’s testing philosophy and provides important facts about testing in business-to-business direct marketing. Part One explains why it’s vitally important to test and explains how testing helps achieve marketing goals.

Testing can be an intimidating word in the world of direct marketing. However, you can look at testing in one of two ways: It’s either a pass/fail exercise or a learning exercise that can improve future outcomes.

 Why bother with testing?

Testing provides a valuable opportunity with every direct marketing effort because it allows you to measure results. If you’re serious about marketing, you understand that you can only benefit from testing. In the end, it either confirms what you already knew, or it surprises you and inspires you to change direction, and all for the better.

The industry believes that coupled with a great offer, a great media buy/list gives you 80 percent of your total direct marketing potential. The other 20 percent depends on your creative approach and how you time things to suit your audience. In other words, your focus should be on delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time.

To all direct marketers out there: Whether your forte is direct ads, digital, or direct mail, you have a major advantage over other forms of advertising. You can test it. You can evaluate it. You can improve it.

Ask yourself

What you’re already doing may work, but is there something else that would work even better? You can’t answer that question unless you’re performing continuous tests. Is your sales count consistent? Is your list accurate? How strong is your offer? Could your creative be more response-oriented? Start by testing the things that have the greatest impact. As your program grows more robust over time, you can test less critical components such as format, timing, color, and so on. As you continue to gather results, you’ll be in an even better position to build on them. Add successful tests to your main program. And keep on testing!

Stay tuned for our next blog, in which we cover testing your mailing list!